There is a part of me that has been lost, for a very long time. She is small and frightened, and has largely been rejected by me throughout the years. Every time I would get close to finding her, another part of me—one that doesn’t want to be vulnerable and exposed—would lock her away in a prison of shame.
This doesn’t mean that I didn’t make progress. I learned to quiet the voice of chaos and extreme anxiety that kept me debilitated for far too long. I discovered that I could be more than my suffering, that I had beauty and goodness wrapped up in all that I believed about myself to be broken. I gained love that allowed me to come back home, back to myself, with enough of myself to discover that there was still a part of myself that was missing.
I use the word discover loosely because what really happened was that a deep depression settled in the more I ignored this abandoned part of me. She had a lot of feelings, and her neediness both alarmed and terrified me. I have spent the better part of my life denying that I was indeed as helpless and insecure as I felt, so her insistent cries were not welcome in my misguided quest for total and complete stability.
So, I put her to sleep, over and over again. It’s not so surprising then that depression showed up to gently pull me back towards myself, however miserable that self was. The problem was, I couldn’t figure out who I was trying to be because the part of me that had been left behind was making it too difficult to face the present. I waded in and out of self-loathing, confusion, and a loneliness that felt palpable. I became so disconnected from myself and others that I dazedly wandered through six months in a hazy, grey fog of sadness and oppression. It felt like I couldn’t breathe or see, it felt like I was muted and stuck and watching the days go by on a film that I was no longer participating in.
And there were many, many moments I wanted to die because I couldn’t manage the pain. I was so very, very afraid of myself—more afraid than I had ever been before. I didn’t want to sit with myself, I didn’t want to feel the intense emotions of abandonment and rejection that had kept me trapped for so long. I didn’t want to face the Sarah that felt left behind, weak, and overly emotional. I didn’t want to be too much, to need too much, to face the emptiness that kept spreading out further and further around me until it felt like there was nobody left except me and her.
It didn’t matter if I had friends, if I had love in my life or people that cared about me. I didn’t care about me, and all the attention in the world could not fix that.
You see, loneliness is not just about connecting to others, it’s about connecting to yourself—and most often, the self that you most desperately want to avoid. I couldn’t figure out why every time there was even the slightest hint of insecurity I would tailspin into a sea of unrelenting hopelessness, why every morning that I woke up by myself I was filled with a sense of dread.
But my little heart, my exiled, hurting part—she knew. She didn’t want to be alone either, but I made sure she wasn’t welcome. I would fill up my time, numb out on anything, everything that would keep her small and silent until—I simply couldn’t anymore.
They say that when the pain of not doing something becomes greater than the fear of doing it, we move forward. Eventually, we just give up, less because we want to and more because we are too exhausted to keep hiding. Parker Palmer says that this is where depression can at times become our friend—the still, small voice that is asking us to pay attention, gently pushing us back towards ourselves until we no longer have a choice but to listen. It is by no means a comfortable process, but a journey towards something greater than what we can imagine in the pain of the moment.
So, these days, I am sitting with my little Sarah. She can be overwhelming, with all her mistrust and dysregulated emotions. But who can fault her? For 30 years she’s been dismissed and blamed and asked to not show up, under any circumstances. It’s going to take some time for her to feel safe again, for her to feel seen and heard and loved.
For her to feel like she can come back home, too.
And until then, I’ve learned to hold the high watch for her. To keep reaching out, keep being patient, keep compassionately showing up even when it feels like it hurts too much.
To keep my arms opened wide until she is no longer lost, but welcomed as she is found—
just as she is.
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